The singer, who is recovering from an operation to save her voice, released her second album 10 months ago. It overtook the late Amy Winehouse's Back To Black, which captured the record just over three months ago.

The new record of 3.4m sales was confirmed on Monday by the Official Charts Company.

Winehouse's album took five years to get to its present 3.3 million sales level, and its success was partly due to the further sales boost following her death in July.

Adele's 21 has not left the top 10 since its release and has been on the chart for 45 weeks. The album was given a further push in the wake of six Grammy nominations last week, including album of the year.